Yesterday I went to town to have 3 rolls of 120 rollfilm developed and printed. While I already knew that the HEMA is one of the stores where this can be done, I decided to also pay FotoWeert a visit. FotoWeert is a dedicated photo store which exists for years and years, so I assumed they could help me. Well....I was baffled from what I heard. "Yes, we can develop those rolls. It's just € 5 each. You only get the developed film, no prints". "No prints?!" "Well, yeah we can scan the negatives and put them on CD, and then we can create prints of the JPEGs". "JPEGs? Which resolution do those JPEG's have?" "Ehm, it's done with a Canon 8800 scanner, so around 15 megapixels. The scans are € 1,50 per negative and the 13x13 prints are €0,50." "Come again?" "Yes, that makes a total of 3x€5 + 3x12x€1,50 + 3x12x€0,50...that's a total of € 87."
87 euros for developing, scanning and printing 36 photos.....That's just downright insane.
I've taken the rolls to the HEMA, and there the prints are a LOT cheaper. € 4,95 per roll and € 0,45 per print, making a total of € 31,20....only € 55,80 cheaper. [v] Now I only have to find a place where I can have negatives scanned in TIFF or DNG at a good resolution (2000 dpi and up) for a decent price. Degrading a 6x6 negative to a 15 megapixel JPEG is just ridiculous.
Try to find that 8800 on Marktplaats or so. You can also try to find an epson 4490 (on ebay) or epson v700 (expensive!) Fileformat depends on which application you use.
Yes, but that involves me making the scans myself, and from what I've read it takes a LOT of time per negative (15 minutes is nothing...). I've already worked with the Epson 1640SU, an older (but still very capable) scanner, and it's a tedious job I tell you. Also, the results with these scanners (even the more expensive ones) vary if you're not doing it exactly how it should be done. The film has to be perfectly straight/flat, and the backlight should be perfect.
That's why I'm looking for a professional scanning service that provides good scans at a reasonable price. I've already received a suggestion to contact PLM in Tilburg. (Link in dutch: http://www.plm.nl/scannen.htm)
-edit- Mmmm, PLM"s prices are even more outrageous.... starting at € 10 ex VAT for a 18 MB TIFF...... I think the conclusion for now is that scanning 6x6 simply is bloody expensive. [:'(]
Today I picked up the prints at the HEMA ; only € 15,56 for developing three rolls and printing 28 photos. That's over € 70 (!) cheaper than at FotoWeert, and I can tell that all these rolls and prints are handled manually, from the way they're developed and treated. That's just awesome! [good]
Turns out that the 12th shots on all of these rolls were lost (only a half exposure) and some of the shots on an expired roll were totally overexposed. I think something went wrong with me taking the roll out of the filmback...[scratch]
Anyway, the 28 prints that I picked up are all fantastic. I *LOVE* the Bronica SQ-B! [good] I'll try to scan some of the prints one of these days, when temperatures drop below 30° C in the attic. [exit]
Expired film that comes out overexposed is most likely from high heat exposure. I use to keep all film in the fridge. The B&W Tri-X in the box I've sent you has NOT been in the fridge all this time. But it never gets that hot here, except on rare occasion. My guess is that roll is probably okay, but there will be risk involved with any expired film unless you know that it has been in a cool environment it whole life. If getting expired film, it would be better to get multiple rolls from the same environment - shoot one test roll to see if it's still good, then hope the rest are in the same condition.
Well, it could just as well be indeed the fact that the roll was expired, however the other shots on the same roll do not suffer from it. And, it was the last half of the roll that was totally overexposed, and that part is in the center of the roll (when not used yet). Anyway, I've had great results from the other rolls from the same batch, which was expired little over 5 years. I'm going to hunt eBay for some rolls now, as I've finished shooting up the remaining rolls today. Eight days with the Bronica, and I've used up 6 rolls. [:)] [good] Medium format is fantastic!
Today I've photographed my father together with his brother and two sisters ; they were having a get together together with the inlaws at my parent's place, and I decided to capture the moment. [:)]
I'll try to scan some shots tomorrow, to post on the frontpage.
No, I haven't had any glicée prints made. For photography I'm still a fan of the real photographic process, including genuine photo paper. Glicée (inkjet prints) can be very nice, but I don't see the advantage of a glicée print over a decent C-print on decent photo paper from Fuji, Kodak or Ilford.
In terms of price I guess that the C-print is often the more pricey print by the way....a decent 60x60cm C-print laminated on PVC will set me back a lot more than 50 euro.
I've seen some glicée prints made on canvas and watercolor paper that were quite nice. It could be a way to test the market if one does any public display work - see what sells, eh? I'd like to try this image: [img]http://q.oxle.com/pub/745/lillies4.jpg[/img] . . .on water color (matte) paper. The image was managed in Corel PhotoPaint X4 using image copies on several different layers. Different layers had different effects applied and then varying levels of transparency introduced. Finally the layers were sandwiched onto the original image for the final composite.
That sure is a nice image! You could try to blow up that image by converting it to a vector based image. That way you could blow it up to any size you want without getting grainy.
Originally posted by MarcelG on 05/07/10 @ 21:29 That sure is a nice image! You could try to blow up that image by converting it to a vector based image. That way you could blow it up to any size you want without getting grainy.
I'm a long way from that. . .I still don't have the Huey Pro. However, I've tried importing the jpg file into Corel PhotoPaint X3 and then resizing it and exporting it. The image is now 6000 pixels wide and looks the same as the smaller image. Dunno', but think your suggestion might work. Had an unexpected expense this month of the truck needing a replacement transmission. . .$4000 USD - so now have to postpone the house painting. Huey Pro looks more distant now. [:~(]
Ouch, that's a huge unexpected expense....I didn't know a transmission costs thát much. [nix]
I could contact a friend of mine who can work magic with Adobe Illustrator. I think he can "vectorize" it in a matter of minutes.
BTW ; the Huey Pro isn't a real necessity unless you're absolutely keen on color accuracy. I'm using uncalibrated screens over 50% of the time (at work, on my phone, my TV etc) and I'm sure 99,999% of the people watching images online aren't using a calibrated screen.
If you still want to purchase it, try to find a secondhand model. (eBay query)
Well the truck is a heavy duty truck and the transmission case (cast aluminum) was not salvageable. There are about five significant mountain ranges between here and Arizona. I drive it hard with maximum load and I've done that trip three times. They had to put beefier parts in this go round.
I joined the Tacoma Photographic Society yesterday (mailed in the dues membership) so that I can see what others are doing at their meetings. The internet can only take one so far. . . Maybe I can borrow a monitor calibration tool. . .or bring the laptop in for calibration. Probably someone can do it for me locally, hopefully.
Congratulations on joining a photographic group! I sure know that the Internet is very limited when it comes to exchanging photographic insights, techniques and critiques. That's for me also the reason to go to the photography group at the local cultural institution.
By the way; If someone of your photography group has a Huey Pro, calibrating your laptop takes 2 minutes, excluding software installation.
Pricey prints...
